Manning Hosts AIGA Small Talk

AIGA Chicago, the professional association for design, chose Manning Productions to give the organization’s first Small Talk of 2011. For those of you who don’t know, AIGA Chicago Small Talks are designed to be intimately scaled events that offer participants the opportunity to learn about the business practices, view work, and experience the environments of local studios and firms.

When AIGA initially approached me to see if Manning would be interested in hosting a Small Talk, I felt very honored, and knew that it aligned with our company’s goal of becoming thought leaders within our respective industries. My only hesitation was creating a lecture format that would accommodate 30 – 40 people in an  office space designed for 10 – 15 employees. As a solution, we opted to divide attendees into 10 groups of 3 or 4. Half of these groups would first attend the lecture, given in the conference room by Doug and Patrick. The other half would rotate through 5 stations, each containing a short presentation on a piece from our portfolio.

I presented tweeSP at one of the stations, a web application that scans a user’s twitter feed and produces a product wish list from Amazon based on what the user has been tweeting about,  and I found that this format of presentation was extremely successful. I was able to engage with the participants on a level that can’t be achieved in a typical lecture format, and I felt like I walked away from the event having been able to truly dialogue about our work.